The eminent paleontologist Norman D. Newell died on April 18, 2005, at the age of 96, in Leonia, New Jersey. Born in 1909 in Chicago, Newell received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He taught at the University of Wisconsin until 1945, when he joined the staff of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He also taught at Columbia University, where his students included Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould.

On April 21, 2005, NCSE executive director Eugenie C. Scott is scheduled to appear on MSNBC's Hardball show, hosted by Chris Matthews, to discuss the debate over evolution education, especially in Kansas. Also scheduled to appear is the Reverend Terry Fox, a Southern Baptist minister in Wichita, Kansas.

The spring 2005 issue of California Wild features "In my backyard: Creationists in California," by NCSE executive director Eugenie C. Scott. Beginning by alluding to the evolution warning labels in Cobb County, Georgia, she comments, "Many Californians chalked up this example of the persistent creationism/evolution controversy to the fact that it happened in, well, Georgia.